Any number of reasons exist that may result in a duplicate prescription to be written for a patient for the same or similar product. Some patients are high utilizers of medical services who may see multiple specialists for various conditions. Thus, one physician may prescribe a product to treat one condition, while a second physician prescribes the same or similar product (e.g., being a chemical equivalent, having equivalent therapeutic effects, etc.) to treat the same (or even a different) condition. Patients may not be aware that the products prescribed are the same. Different physicians may not have access to a patient's complete prescription history, and thus not be aware that a patient was previously prescribed the same or similar product. This may be the case especially when the two physicians are not part of the same practice group or operating entity, and thus do not have access to a patient's records maintained by the other physician. Other instances may lead to duplicate prescriptions of the same or similar products when patients attempt to over-utilize prescription products, such as controlled substances, by intentionally visiting different multiple prescribers for the purpose of obtaining multiple prescriptions for the desired drug. Accordingly, without complete access to a patient's prescription history, prescribers or pharmacists, the two most important medical professionals involved in patient care and drug utilization, are under-informed.
Thus, there is a need in the industry for systems and methods for notifying a prescriber or other entity of duplicate product prescriptions.